


In You the Wars Accumulated

by havocthecat



Category: Underworld (Movies)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Post-Awakening, Protective Parents, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 12:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16118168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/pseuds/havocthecat
Summary: A post-Underworld: Awakening movie that takes into account none of the later films, the ambiguous death of Erika (hey, I liked her, okay), nor Scott Speedman's abandonment of the series for other, more regular work, and which was also never finished.In you the wars and the flights accumulated.From you the wings of the song birds rose.The Song of Despair, by Pablo Neruda





	In You the Wars Accumulated

They track Michael down. He's loud and clumsy for an immortal; if they'd been given more than a moment's respite, Selene would have trained him better. When they find him, he's fending off a pack of snarling lycans. If lycans can't take down a twelve year old child, what makes them think they're a match for a full grown hybrid, even one weak from twelve years of starvation?

Desperation.

Selene moves fast, faster than any lycan that exists in these nights. She tries to make each bullet count, but before she knows it her Berettas click when she pulls the triggers. Three lycans are down. It's too few, but she's forced to sheath her firearms and draw two silver bladed knives.

David wields a silver-plated whip and short blade with devastating efficiency, beheading lycans as if he were born to it. She can make a Death Dealer out of him in a century or two. Her daughter fights as well, with the uncoordinated limbs of a twelve year old, but powered by hybrid strength and fear of recapture. 

They stand back to back, David and Selene, and fight together for a moment before the battle draws them apart. Selene leaps into the air, flipping over a black-furred lycan - not so large as Quint Lane, but still almost the size of Raze. It turns to claw at her, but she catches its fur with one hand and decapitates it in a single clean move.

The humans will spend days cleaning up lycan corpses. It should keep them distracted them from vampires.

Her daughter leaps on the back of a lycan and distracts it before Michael rips off its head. Michael's jet black eyes widen in shock when he sees them, when their daughter falls to the ground along with the lycan, but Selene has no time for pleasantries. The most fierce of the lycans, a a wiry creature with red fur, wraps its claws around her daughter's arm and is dragging her away.

"Let her go!" exclaims Selene, throwing herself forward into a roll and hurling her dagger into the lycan's eye. It drops and her daughter leaps free.

Michael stares at her. It's been so long that she wants to stop, to reassure him, but they haven't any time. Reinforcements are already on their way. Selene retrieves her knife and cleans it on the lycan's grubby clothes before sheathing it. 

"We need to go," says Selene. 

"Some things never change," says Michael, more relieved than she's ever seen him. His skin bleeds back to its natural color and his eyes fade from black to blue.

"We're almost at the safe house," says David. He coils up the whip and hides it under his coat, just before they hear the howl of a pack of hunting lycans and are spurred into movement.

***

Selene goes straight for the cooler. There are bags of blood stored in there, just like at every vampire safe house. She tosses one each to Michael and her daughter. David gets his own. 

She doesn't check to see if they're cloned. Her eyes turn ice blue with anger and her teeth sharpen. She'll kill as many of them as she has to, humans and lycans both.

Michael nods at David, but his eyes are glued to her daughter. To their daughter, in her white clothes and with innocent curiosity written all over her face. "Did you turn her? Did you bring a kid into all this?"

Their daughter stares at Michael. She doesn't act as if she knows him, not the way she knew Selene. She spent twelve years in a lab, as the _pet_ of a tribe of lycans, with no idea of her family nor the means to be with them. The one comfort she must have had was the ability to sense Selene. 

Michael is a doctor. There's nothing Selene can say. She stares at Michael, then at their daughter, then gives Michael another flat stare. He must be able to observe the similarities. He _must_. 

"Who's she?" asks Michael. He sets the blood down on the counter as he walks closer to their daughter. "She smells familiar. She smells like you."

Their daughter holds the bag of blood in her hands without touching it. All she wants is for Michael to recognize her.

"She's our child," says Selene. She picks up the bag of blood and puts it into Michael's hand, ignoring the shocked look he gives her. There's no time for that. "Michael, drink. It's been twelve years; you're weak."

"What the fuck?" asks Michael, before glancing at their daughter and looking sheepish. "Sorry. What's--" He runs one trembling hand through his hair. "What's your name?"

It's doesn't occur to Selene that she shouldn't swear in front of children. After nearly being vivisected, not to mention twelve years of captivity and killing lycans bare-handed during her escape, their daughter can handle a few naughty words.

"My name is Subject Two," says their daughter, "and you're my father. I thought they'd killed you."

David is getting out glasses and pouring blood into them. He shoves one into Selene's hands, then another into Michael's. The glass he hands to her daughter is more gently delivered. 

"What the hell kind of name is that?" asks Michael. He gulps down the blood, then slams the mug on the table. The glasses here are as utilitarian as the rest of the safe house. "What's going on? What do you mean, it's been twelve years?"

"You were captured by the humans," says their daughter. Her voice is slow, as if she has to think about each word before she says it. "They took me from my mother's body. I remember that."

He stares at their daughter, who straightens her shoulders and meets his gaze. Selene has no idea who taught her to speak or how to stand up for herself, but she owes that person a debt. Which she'll pay off by not killing them, perhaps, since they also kept her daughter captive.

"What do we do now?" David asks her. He's desperate to change the subject. 

Selene meant what she told him. She isn't a leader. He was right, though, in that Selene will fight for what she believes in. 

"We take back our world."

***

"She needs a name," says Michael, when they're alone. Their daughter has gone off to clean up, and David is staring out a window at the sunlight. "Subject Two isn't a name. It's an experimental designation. It's bullshit."

"She can choose her own." Most vampires chose a new name upon being brought into a coven. Their daughter can do the same after fighting for her life.

"What the hell happened?" asks Michael. "We have a fucking _kid_. I never-- I thought--"

"You must have known it was possible," says Selene. She keeps her calm as she sets down her knives and starts to check the silver plating. It won't be hard to purchase more; human sporting goods stores are full of them, though none so well-made as hers. Silver electroplating probably became a full-scale industry; that would be preferable. "Or had you forgotten about Lucian and Sonja's child?"

"That's not what I meant," snaps Michael. He sighs and sags against the counter. "I never thought you and I were going to have kids."

Selene pauses and sets her blades down. She can sharpen them later. "What makes you think that I had?"

Some few vampires chose to reproduce. Most of her coven had wanted no such responsibility, an attitude that had been encouraged by elders - and Kraven, their regent - who wanted no challenges to their authority. Those that weren't fighters were, on the whole, jaded and sybaritic. She could have gone to America and been with Amelia's half of the coven. It might have been less decadent, but Viktor hadn't been there. 

No Death Dealer brought a child into their world, not with the never-ending war against the lycans. Pregnancy would slow down the women and keep them from the battlefield. The men would have to help provide for a child. There was no time for a war, not then. Even for immortals, a decade away from the Death Dealers was too long, and it wasn't as if you could bring a child into a firefight. 

"I figured you hadn't," admits Michael. He sits down across the table from her. "I was going to have kids with Sarah, I thought. Before she died."

"I thought I was going to do a lot of things." Selene had thought she would spend eternity at Viktor's side. She'd thought she'd have to spend forever fending off Kraven's unwanted advances. She thought she might spend forever killing lycans. Though she still might do that, but for different reasons. If Lucian had survived, perhaps the lycans and vampires could have come to a truce. They could have united against Markus and then agains the humans.

"We have a child to take care of," says Michael. He's lost, as lost as Selene had been a night before. "Jesus, Selene. I watched her take a lycan down with her bare hands. She's a fucking kid; she shouldn't be killing. She should be playing with toys."

"She's a hybrid, Michael. It's in her blood." Selene is, perhaps, more unconcerned than she should be. Michael sighs and looks at her. He doesn't get it. "She was born in captivity. They didn't tame her. We should be thankful for that."

***

It's midnight, and the moon is full. Selene isn't afraid of lycans, but caution will serve them well. They stay inside tonight. They'll move when neither humans nor lycans will suspect two vampires and two hybrids walking about. Selene stares out the window, searching for threats and trying to determine their next move. 

"It's a lot to take in." Michael slips his arms around her. 

She relaxes against his broad chest for the first time in twelve years. "I know."

"What do we do next?" asks Michael.

Selene turns in his arms and kisses him. Her teeth, sharp as they are, graze his mouth, and Selene tastes a drop of his blood. She feels only the chill of winter and dreamless sleep in his memories. "We take back our world."

"It never ends, does it?" says Michael. His hands are tight on her arms, tight to the point of pain.

"We'll make it end," promises Selene. "If we have to kill all of them, we'll make it end."

***

Detective Sebastian is a decorated detective for uncovering the 'reinvigorated lycan threat.' They have him targeted; they'll kill him or turn him, most likely the former.

Given all that and the humans' interest in him, it's rather bold to knock on his door at noon. Which, of course, is why Selene does it. 

Sebastian gives her a dour look. "Didn't think I'd ever see you again." He opens the door wide, turns around and limps back down the hallway without waiting to see if Selene will follow.

She won't abandon him. After what he's done to help her, she can't.

They wait until the door is closed and they're both in the kitchen. Sebastian gestures at the table and then slams a glass of something harsh and alcoholic down in front of her. He jerks his head at the window; they're closed, but the curtains are wide open. "You never know when they're watching. Anyone could be infected."

"Lovely." Selene is wearing black slacks and a long-sleeved top, also black. Her coat is the same style as the gray wool she'd stolen the night she and her daughter had broken out of the Antigen facilities.

"Why are you here?" asks Sebastian. He settles down at the table across from her and takes a long drink from his own glass.

"The lycans will come after you tonight," says Selene. "It's the last night of the full moon."

Sebastian takes another drink, then wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. "Pretty sure the goverment is counting on that."

"And do you like that?" asks Selene. 

"I got no choice," says Sebastian. He leans back in his chair, balancing it on the back two legs. 

"Come with me." It was the most sensible move for Sebastian. "They've less chance of protecting you than I do."

"What do I get out of it?" asks Sebastian. He's wary; she doesn't blame him.

"The means to defend yourself," she says. "If you survive." Selene is still except for her eyes. There's light glinting off a window three blocks down. Observers, yes, but not ones who can listen in. Otherwise they'd be here already. 

Sebastian fidgets. His head turns as he looks around, and he drinks from his glass full of amber liquid. He moves like a human. He's fragile. His bandages smell of blood. "I heard that's not guaranteed."

"The lycans will try to turn you if they can," says Selene. "They'll try to use you. If they can't, they'll settle for eating you."

"You really know how to make a guy's day better, don't you?" asks Sebastian. He finishes off his drink and limps over to the counter to pour himself another. "I guess I'm coming along."

***

They find Erika, of all people, in a nightclub full of sweaty, gyrating humans. She holds court behind the bar, pouring drinks and turning down offers from half a dozen men and women. When she looks up after mixing the most popular drink, called a vampire's blood martini, she catches Selene's eye.

"I suppose if anyone was going to be here, it was going to be you," says Selene. She sits in front of the bar and nods at the glass. "Do they have real vampire blood in them?"

"Don't be ridiculous," says Erika. She leans forward on her elbows and gives Selene an appraising look. "Who would want to be infected with that horrid virus?"

The corner of Selene's mouth quirks. "Who indeed?"

"Are you here to do something typically foolish?" asks Erika. Without waiting for an answer, she cups her hands on either side of her mouth. "Last call!"

"Don't go anywhere," says Selene.

Just before Erika disappears behind a crowd of humans, all of whom are determined that their order should come first, she gives Selene an arch look. It tells Selene just how silly a statement like that had been.

An hour later, the bar empties out. The bouncer makes a move on Selene. 

"She's a friend," says Erika. Just like that, the all-too-human bouncer backs off and lets Erika wipe down the bar. Servers move through, gathering up glasses. "I'm the manager."

"Of course you are." Selene figures it's appropriate that a vampire manages a nightclub that caters to humans pretending they're vampires. 

Her movements are economical, swift and sure, but not hurried. Erika moves like a human. She _looks_ like a human. It's her youth; or her skills. Erika has always been good at lying."


End file.
